What are these for?

Injuneer said:

Black plastic/purple seal could be either the MAF sensor (1994-1997) or the crank position sensor (1996-1997).

This is where year of the car becomes important. Is this a new purchase, and you just noticed this? Is it possible someone put a 96/97 engine harness on a 94-95 engine, where there is no crank position sensor?

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ZumpTA said:

No idea, and since you posted in a "general" topic instead of a generation specific one, we have no idea what year or engine you are asking about. I'm guessing you have a 4th gen? If that's the case, you can download the year specific Factory Service Manual from the following link and look over the wiring diagram to identify them.

MediaFire

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To eliminate everyone who is trying to help repeatedly asking what you have, and you repeating year/engine/transmission, click on your Avatar in the upper right, go to Account Settings, and enter your vehicle information into Vehicle Details. That information will appear under your avatar in every post for all to see. Makes things easier on everyone involved for obvious reasons.

Welcome aboard!

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ZumpTA said:

What are the wire colors?

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ZumpTA said:

What are the wire colors?

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Injuneer said:

Is the engine running?

Is the engine stock or modified?

Is the “SES” light on?

Answers to those questions might shed light on the purpose of the connectors. Knowing the number of wires in each connector, and the color of each wire might make the problem easier to solve. If the “SES” light is on, scanning the codes that turned it on may point in the correct direction.

In the electrical section of the manual, there is a schematic of each system. Following the schematic is a list of every component on the schematic, with the location of each. Then there is a diagram showing the shape of each connector. Lots of circuits, lots of pages, lots of work.

I have never worked on the 3.8L V6, so I'm not familiar with that level of detail. We seem to have a lot of 3.8L V6 owners, but it seems like most of them are looking for help, not offering it.

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Injuneer said:

What code tells you to “check the spark plugs”? Sounds like you went to an auto parts store, they scanned it, and gave you the scanner’s generic list of possible problems that might cause the codes. Then they conveniently sold you, or tried to sell you those parts.

That's not how it works. You write down the exact code numbers, look them up in the factory service manual, and tell us the codes so we can help. For example, there are at least a dozen codes that mention the O2 sensors, but not all of them lead to replacing the sensor. There can be multiple causes that involve things like the wiring, or air/fuel mixture problems, for example.

There are relatively inexpensive devices that allow you to pull the codes yourself. If the SES light is still on, the codes are still there. A member here, GaryDoug has written free software for real time monitoring of the OBD-2 PCM vitals, and the codes. Just need an ELM-327 compatible scan tool.

Free OBD2 scanner software

Guys, I have written a scan program for PC for the OBD2 cars (96-02) and posted it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?0elo4c935uc5s It is a fairly normal OBD2 scan utility, but does NOT do any bi-directional control or programming (yet). I wrote it in order to make available a free version that...

www.firebirdnation.com

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